Sickness before and during holidays – when does an employee have the right to replacement holidays?

A new holiday year has started and many employees are about to take their holidays. Sickness before or during the holiday and requests for taking the holiday at another time, are questions that cause the employers a lot of torment.

Employees who are absent due to sickness before the beginning of a planned holiday, are not obligated to commencing the holiday, and can thus take their holiday at another time. If the employee recovers before the end of the planned holiday period, the employee has the right to choose to take the remainder of the holiday. The employee may also choose to take the holiday despite the sickness. The latter may be relevant for employees who are absent part-time due to sickness.

Employees who have earned 25 days of holiday and who get sick during the holiday, have the right to a replacement holiday when the employee has been sick for 5 days during holidays. In other words, the first 5 sick days are at the employee’s own expense. The 5 sick days do not have to be consecutive or during the same holiday.

Employees who have earned less than 25 days of holiday (i.e. employees who have not been employed for an entire vesting year prior to the holiday year), have the right to a proportional replacement holiday, just like the qualifying period is calculated proportionally. Employees who have earned, e.g. 20 days of holiday, thus have the right to a replacement holiday after 4 sick days.

The right to a replacement holiday is subject to the employee notifying the employer of the sickness on the first sick day, and the right to a replacement holiday therefore does not apply until the day on which the sickness is notified. This does, however, not apply if exceptional circumstances exist (e.g. if the employee is in a coma). If the employee does not notify the employer of the sickness before e.g. day 4, the 4 days are added, and the employee does thus not have the right to a replacement holiday until from the 9th sick day.

The notification of sickness must be given in accordance with the rules that usually apply in relation to notification of sickness.

The employee is obligated to collecting and paying for medical documentation for the sickness. The documentation may be e.g. a medical certificate or statement or a printed medical record from a hospital. This applies regardless of the place in which the employee is on holiday. Regardless of the place in which the employee is on holiday, the employee is obligated to ensuring that the employer receives adequate documentation for the sickness, corresponding to a Danish doctor’s note. As the employee must document the sickness on his or her own initiative and on his or her own expense, in practice, the employee will probably also have to pay for the translation of e.g. a Turkish or Greek doctor’s note.

The introduction of a bill of a new holiday act has been expected for some time now, but it is not yet a reality.